Tracing execution of software for design coverage

Abstract

Test suites are designed to validate the operation of a system against requirements. One important aspect of a test suite design is to ensure that system operation logic is tested completely. This is a difficult task. Code coverage tools support test suite designers by providing the information about which parts of source code are covered during system execution. Unfortunately, code coverage tools produce only source code coverage information. For a test engineer it is often hard to understand what the noncovered parts of the source code do and how they relate to requirements. We propose a generic approach that provides design coverage of the executed software, simplifying the development of new test suites. We demonstrate our approach on common design abstractions such as statecharts and structure diagrams. We implement the design coverage using tracing and a trace analysis framework. Using design coverage, test suites could be created faster by focussing on untested design elements.